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Author Topic: Primary Wars  (Read 45826 times)

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Büge

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #240 on: April 24, 2008, 06:10:14 AM »

a humans natural instinct is to let the other guy sink or swim.

I believe that most people are inherently good

I move that subjective material be stricken from the record.
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Büge

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #241 on: April 24, 2008, 06:17:40 AM »

A food shortage manufactured by US corn subsidies? I'm not saying I doubt you, I'm just having trouble wrapping my head around how an artificial food surplus leads to shortages. I'll re-read your explanation a few more times once I can rationalize the contradiction in terms.

If I may.

Let's say it takes so much money to produce a bushel of corn. And that bushel of corn is sold at market for, oh, 30% more than it cost to make it. That's a nice 30% profit you can make. If, on the other hand, you start saturating the market with corn, the price will go down. Basic supply and demand.

So, in order to keep prices at a place where farmers can enjoy that 30%, they have to keep supplies low.
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Classic

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #242 on: April 24, 2008, 06:27:13 AM »

I get that. And in America, subsidies generally keep an artificially increased price. I also get that part of our government's policy on what to do with all of the super-surplus corn they buy is to sell it to other countries, where the REAL, INSANE LOW PRICE of the corn is used instead of the artificially inflated price we give it. And then I get that the farmers who are selling locally grown corn get screwed.

That's about the point where the understanding breaks down for now.
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Arc

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #243 on: April 24, 2008, 07:52:24 AM »

That's because the economy isn't the government's concern.

Funny, I thought the government relied on a tax base to fund itself with.


I find myself yelling in anger at Bill OReilly almost as often as Jon Stewart.

Yelling in anger at Jon Stewart is equal to that of punching a teddy bear.


The economy shouldn't be the government's concern, but they're the ones who went and cocked it up and they're the only ones who can fix it now.

They've 'cocked it up' by not regulating the loan and energy markets, which really discredits the idea of the economy not being of their concern.


We will be out of Iraq by 2010.

We will not be out of Iraq by 2010.

See how that works?


Of the three contenders, he is the only person who supports the North American Free Trade agreement.

All three support NAFTA. Obama wishes to see more safety regulation to halt growing multi-billion dollar deficits, regulation that would undoubtedly affect Mexico, but not likely Canada.


corn

Don't forget E85, which has been loaded onto the consumer market to counter-act these surpluses, despite it requiring more energy to create than it outputs. All while use of food crops for fuel raises the price of food worldwide.

:scanners:
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Ocksi

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #244 on: April 24, 2008, 11:29:40 AM »

I get that. And in America, subsidies generally keep an artificially increased price. I also get that part of our government's policy on what to do with all of the super-surplus corn they buy is to sell it to other countries, where the REAL, INSANE LOW PRICE of the corn is used instead of the artificially inflated price we give it. And then I get that the farmers who are selling locally grown corn get screwed.

That's about the point where the understanding breaks down for now.
Corn chokes the land and takes a spread.  If you've started growing unprofitable corn, the only way to make money is to just grow more corn, which is already in surplus... at the cost of other crops, and the ability to use the land for other crops, as well.

Corn is a huge nitrogen hog, which in the days before Nazi Technology, was rotated with heavy nitrogen-fixing crop: soybeans, peanuts, and other legumes.  The rotation here kept the earth balanced, but then the Haber method of artificially fixing nitrogen through fertilizer happened and now, instead of growing anything but corn so your land is still worth anything, now you just grow more corn and drop a bunch of chemical fertilizer on it.

So when cheap US corn gets to an area, the farmers there can either shape up or ship out; the only way to get in shape is increase the number of bushels of corn produced on their land.  Further raping the land.  And taking away actual foodspace.  Because thanks to things like high fructose corn syrup, ethanol, and corn-fed animals, corn isn't necessarily a food anymore, it's a commodity.  And the more of this commodity that appears, the more corporations like Cargill find new and interesting uses for the corn.

So you grow a ton of grain, enough to choke out the corn industry in other nations, and most of it isn't even getting eaten as food (for us, anyway), so you create a huge surplus of corn (potential food) at the cost of actual food, then don't use the corn as food at all.
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Kazz

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #245 on: April 24, 2008, 11:54:08 AM »

At this point I pop up my head up and briefly point out that there's no profit in feeding hungry Africans.
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Mongrel

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #246 on: April 24, 2008, 02:32:11 PM »

a humans natural instinct is to let the other guy sink or swim.

I believe that most people are inherently good

I move that subjective hilariously contradictory material be stricken from enshrined in the record.
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Guild

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #247 on: April 24, 2008, 03:33:22 PM »

These ideas are not mutually exclusive. I believe that people have the best interests of others at heart. Those best interests, in light of the sad fact that life is hard, include allowing their fellow man to drown as an example to others. That's not to say never help anyone, but at a certain point you just can't save a soul that wants to die.

Starving Africans can't help their situation. It's not wrong to help them.

And Arc, you're wrong about 2010.
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Kazz

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #248 on: April 24, 2008, 03:38:03 PM »

Starving Africans can't help their situation. It's not wrong to help them.

 :hurr:
NOT MY POINT AT ALL
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Guild

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #249 on: April 24, 2008, 03:39:19 PM »

Starving Africans can't help their situation. It's not wrong to help them.

 :hurr:
NOT MY POINT AT ALL
I KNOW I WAS USING YOUR COMMENT AS AN EXAMPLE RELAX
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Royal☭

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #250 on: April 24, 2008, 03:43:03 PM »

These ideas are not mutually exclusive. I believe that people have the best interests of others at heart. Those best interests, in light of the sad fact that life is hard, include allowing their fellow man to drown as an example to others.

Let this be a lesson: Don't go swimming if Guild is the lifeguard.

SCD

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #251 on: April 24, 2008, 04:15:24 PM »

Wrong.  There is no food shortage.

This honestly can be said worldwide as trade and distribution mechanisms worldwide are becoming poorer due to knee-jerk reaction.  Thanks for catching me on this one.
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Guild

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #252 on: April 24, 2008, 04:15:38 PM »

McCain will win.

PRIMUS: Obviously, the Democrats are geniuses of failure. Fair or not, no matter the terms, there is absolutely no contest in which the Democratic party cannot and will not come in dead last.
Man I am sick of whining from Democrats.
Quote from: Norondor
SECUNDUS: Democratic voters are, by weight, about 20% informed progressives and 80% chumps. That 80% will absolutely believe the popular wisdom that Weathervane McCain is somehow both at once a maverick, breaking with party lines left and right (so to speak) and a bipartisan, willing to cross the aisle to get things done. Bipartisanship is seen as a good thing by chumps, who do not realize, as the informed progressives, that being willing and able to compromise your principles and those of the people who helped get you elected ought to have you swinging from a streetlamp.
You can be bipartisan if your core morals are seen as such by that 20% on both sides. Take the case of a Republican who believes in gay marriage rights.
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Burrito Al Pastor

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #253 on: April 26, 2008, 01:12:57 PM »

McCain will win.

PRIMUS: Obviously, the Democrats are geniuses of failure. Fair or not, no matter the terms, there is absolutely no contest in which the Democratic party cannot and will not come in dead last.
Man I am sick of whining from Democrats.

I assure you, the Democrats would love nothing more than to be able to stop whining about how terrible their party is.
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I'm a heartbreaker... My name... Charles.

Mongrel

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #254 on: April 26, 2008, 07:24:36 PM »

As quoted from Hillary earlier this week:

Quote from: HRC
'If I'm the president, we will attack Iran [if it attacks Israel]. … We would be able to totally obliterate them.'

 :fail:
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Doom

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #255 on: April 26, 2008, 07:26:33 PM »

I'd just like to say that I enjoyed America, it was a really great ride while it lasted.  :vampire:
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Arc

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #256 on: April 28, 2008, 08:45:27 AM »

Canada: A Nation of Scoundrels & Saboteurs!

The writing is all over the wall on this one, and both citizenries seem to want no further interference.
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Mongrel

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #257 on: April 28, 2008, 04:37:45 PM »

Ahhhh Stevie, Stevie, Stevie...
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SCD

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #258 on: April 28, 2008, 08:41:23 PM »

Well, it's about time someone down south picked up on that one!  :slow:
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Guild

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Re: Primary Wars
« Reply #259 on: April 28, 2008, 11:22:49 PM »

Quote from: HRC
'If I'm the president, we will attack Iran [if it attacks Israel]. … We would be able to totally obliterate them.'

You would think people would be less enthusiastic about inciting the events spoken of in the Bible as heralding the end of the world.
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